Summary: The LUG of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi complains about attempts by Microsoft to poison Indian standards with software patents; LCA receives a wakeup call regarding Novell’s malfunctioning Mono

“Under a saner system, Microsoft would possibly be put before courts across the world. Microsoft deliberately ignores the law.”Indian citizens understand suppression fairly well because stories about the British are not so distant in their history. They too are some of the most active when it comes to resisting the invader, whose patents are being used as a tool to tell locals that they are not permitted to write their own software. Instead, they must rent software from a company that was found guilty of tax evasion in their country — a company which was actually found guilt of monopoly abuse in many other parts of the world. It really takes some nerve, does it not?

The GNU/Linux Users Group of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi has just responded to the latest round of lobbying for software patents in Indian standards. To quote a portion:

This document examines the Draft Policy on Open Standards for e­Government v2.4 dated 25.11.2009 and the process followed in adopting the same. You can download from http://fosscomm.in/OpenStandards .

If v2.4 is adopted as official policy, it will result in:

1. The legitimization of proprietary standards that entail the payment of royalty fees and huge foreign exchange outflows. This cost will be paid by Indian taxpayers and pocketed by monopolistic vendors located in foreign countries, since most proprietary standards are controlled by entities outside India. Unlike royalty­free open standards, the usage of proprietary standards will mean that users will, directly or indirectly, pay a royalty to a private entity for the privilege of communicating with the government.
2. Reduce e­Government in India to a mess of incompatible systems that cannot communicate with each other, thus defeating the very purpose of e­Government, if multiple standards for the same purpose are allowed.

Further away near Australia, LCA takes place and it seems to be spectacularly well organised based on press coverage.

Jeremy Allison, a Brit, has just given a talk at LCA and he repeats his warning about Mono [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. ITWire reports:

LCA 2010: Allison warns of patent traps in Mono

Patents are the only threat that Microsoft can brandish against free and open source software and that is exactly why people should be wary of the Mono project, free software advocate and Samba hacker Jeremy Allison told a packed auditorium at the 11th LCA today.

Allison’s presentation, titled “Microsoft and free software: the elephant in the room” was held in the second largest auditorium but it was difficult to find standing room once he got going.

Sporting a T-shirt with the Samba logo on the front, and “opening windows to a wider world” on the rear, Allison presented a meticulously prepared set of arguments to show that patents were the only way which the word’s largest software company had left to attack FOSS.

Mono is an attempt to create an open source clone of Microsoft’s .NET development environment; the project was begun by Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza who claims this will pull Windows developers over to GNU/Linux.

Allison said the patent war would be a never-ending conflict. “All the patent promises about Mono count for nothing,” he said. Other methods of harming FOSS had not borne the expected fruit.

Microsoft to declare patent war on iPhone/Android?

A key Linux developer has predicted Microsoft will use its huge patent portfolio to cripple smartphone competitors and boost its woeful Windows Mobile market share.

Microsoft will increasingly utilise its patent library to try and stifle any competition for netbook OSes and reassert itself in the mobile phone space, a prominent open source developer has argued.

[...]

That strategy is likely to be particularly prominent in the market for non-PC devices such as netbooks and smart phones, where Windows doesn’t enjoy the same strength of market share. While co-marketing schemes have seen former Linux supporters such as Asus largely shift to Windows, maintaining overall share and eliminating new competitors is critical to Microsoft’s survival, Allison said.

Connecting the dots, however, I’m tempted to push this a little forward. Contrary to what Microsoft envisioned or hoped or simply told us, the Windows ecosystem is not moving towards a .NET centric solution, but .NET is only a powerful and sophisticated execution and development environment on top of Windows .

The #1 framework or language is Java, based on data from those who track programming. █

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Staff of the EPO is given yet more reasons to protest tomorrow at the British Consulate, for the so-called 'President' of the EPO reminds everyone of the very raison d'être for the protest -- a vain disregard for the rule of law

The European Patent Office (EPO) President, Benoît Battistelli, reportedly started threatening -- as before -- staff that decides to exercise the right to assemble and protest against abuses, including the abuses of President Battistelli himself

A protest in Munich in less than 6 days will target Mr. Sean Dennehey, who has helped Battistelli cover up his abuses and crush legitimate critics, whom he deemed illegal opposition as if the EPO is an authoritarian regime as opposed to a public service which taxpayers are reluctantly (but forcibly) funding